Bricks Without Straw Part 19

"I will go and see him," he said.

He walked on up the hill alone.

"Well, ma'am," said the sheriff, "what do you think should be done now?"

"If you would only let these people come in and vote, gentlemen.

They will return at once, and I would answer with my life for their good behavior. I think it was all a misunderstanding."

"Certainly--certainly, ma'am," said the sheriff. "No doubt about it."

She turned her horse and was about to ride back up the hill, but Hesden Le Moyne, taking off his hat, said:

"Gentlemen, I think we owe a great deal to the bravery of this young lady. I have no doubt but all she says is literally true.

Yet we like to have got into trouble which might have been very serious in its consequences, nay, perhaps has already resulted seriously. But for her timely arrival, good sense, and courage there would have been more bloodshed; our town would have been disgraced, troops posted among us, and perhaps lives taken in retaliation.

Now, considering all this, I move a vote of thanks to the lady, and that we all pledge ourselves to take no notice of these people, but let them come in and vote and go out, without interruption.

All that are in favor of that say Aye!"

Every man waved his hat, there was a storm of "ayes," and then the old rebel yell again, as, bowing and blushing with pleasure, Mollie turned and rode up the hill.

There also matters had a.s.sumed a more cheerful aspect by reason of her cordial reception at the bridge, and the report of the surgeon that the man's wound, though quite troublesome, was by no means serious. She told in a few words what had occurred, explained the mistake, reminded them that such a display would naturally prove very exasperating to persons situated as the others were, counselled moderation and quietness of demeanor, and told them to re-form their ranks and go forward, quietly vote, and return. A rousing cheer greeted her words. Eliab Hill uttered a devout prayer of thankfulness. Nimbus blunderingly said it was all his fault, "though he didn't mean no harm," and then suggested that the flag and music should be left there in charge of some of the boys, which was approved. The wounded man was put into the carry-all by the side of Eliab, and they started down the hill. The sheriff, who was waiting at the bridge, called out for them to bring the flag along and have the music strike up.

So, with flying colors and rattling drum-beat, the voters of Red Wing marched to the polls; the people of Melton looked good-naturedly on; the young hot-bloods joked the dusky citizen, and bestowed extravagant encomiums on the plucky girl who had saved them from so much threatened trouble; and Mollie Ainslie rode home with a hot, flushed face, and was put to bed by her co-laborer, the victim of a raging headache.

"I declare, Mollie Ainslie," said Lucy, "you are the queerest girl I ever saw. I believe you would ride that horse into a den of lions, and then faint because you were not eaten up. I could never do what you have done--never in the world--but if did I wouldn't get sick because it was all over."

CHAPTER XX.

PHANTASMAGORIA.

The day after the election a colored lad rode up to the school-house, delivered a letter for Miss Ainslie to one of the scholars, and rode away. The letter was written in an even, delicate hand, which was yet full of feminine strength, and read as follows:

"MISS AINSLIE:

"My son Hesden has told me of your courage in preventing what must otherwise have resulted in a most terrible conflict yesterday, and I feel it to be my duty, in behalf of many ladies whose husbands and sons were present on that occasion, to express to you our grat.i.tude.

It is seldom that such opportunity presents itself to our s.e.x, and still more seldom that we are able to improve it when presented.

Your courage in exerting the power you have over the peculiar people toward whom you hold such important relations, commands my utmost admiration. It is a matter of the utmost congratulation to the good people of Horsford that one of such courage and prudence occupies the position which you hold. I am afraid that the people whom you are teaching can never be made to understand and appreciate the position into which they have been thrust by the terrible events of the past few years. I am sure, however, that you will do all in your power to secure that result, and most earnestly pray for your success. Could I leave my house I should do myself the pleasure to visit your school and express my grat.i.tude in person. As it is, I can only send the good wishes of a weak old woman, who, though once a slave-mistress, was most sincerely rejoiced at the down-fall of a system she had always regarded with regret, despite the humiliation it brought to her countrymen.

"HESTER LE MOYNE."

This was the first word of commendation which had been received from any Southern white woman, and the two lonely teachers were greatly cheered by it. When we come to a.n.a.lyze its sentences there seems to be a sort of patronizing coolness in it, hardly calculated to awaken enthusiasm. The young girls who had given themselves to what they deemed a missionary work of peculiar urgency and sacredness, did not stop to read between the lines, however, but perused with tears of joy this first epistle from one of their own s.e.x in that strange country where they had been treated as leprous outcasts by all the families who belonged to the race of which they were unconscious ornaments. They jumped to the conclusion that a new day was dawning, and that henceforth they would have that companionship and sympathy which they felt that they deserved from the Christian women by whom they were surrounded.

"What a dear, good old lady she must be!" exclaimed the pretty and gushing Lucy Ellison. "I should like to kiss her for that sweet letter."

So they took heart of grace, talked with the old "Mammy" who had charge of their household arrangements about the gentle invalid woman, whom she had served as a slave, and p.r.o.nounced "jes de bestest woman in de worl', nex' to my young ladies," and then they went on with their work with renewed zeal.

Two other results followed this affair, which tended greatly to relieve the monotony of their lives. A good many gentlemen called in to see the school, most of them young men who were anxious for a sight of the brave lady who had it in charge, and others merely desirous to see the pretty Yankee "n.i.g.g.e.r teachers." Many would, no doubt, have become more intimate with them, but there was something in the terms of respectful equality on which they a.s.sociated with their pupils, and especially with their co-worker, Eliab Hill, which they could not abide or understand. The fame of the adventure had extended even beyond the county, however, and raised them very greatly in the esteem of all the people.

Miss Ainslie soon noticed that the gentlemen she met in her rides, instead of pa.s.sing her with a rude or impudent stare began to greet her with polite respect. Besides this, some of the officers of the post at Boyleston, hearing of the gallant conduct of their country-woman, rode over to pay their respects, and brought back such glowing reports of the beauty and refinement of the teachers at Red Wing that the distance could not prevent others of the garrison from following their example; and the old Ordinary thereafter witnessed many a pleasant gathering under the grand old oak which shaded it. Both of the teachers found admirers in the gallant company, and it soon became known that Lucy Ellison would leave her present situation erelong to brighten the life of a young lieutenant. It was rumored, too, that another uniform covered the sad heart of a cavalier who asked an exchange into a regiment on frontier duty, because Mollie Ainslie had failed to respond favorably to his pa.s.sionate addresses.

So they taught, read, sang, wandered along the wood-paths in search of new beauties to charm their Northern eyes; rode together whenever Lucy could be persuaded to mount Nimbus' mule, which, despite its hybrid nature, was an excellent saddle-beast; entertained with unaffected pleasure the officers who came to cheer their loneliness; and under the care of their faithful old "Mammy" and the oversight of a kind-hearted, serious-faced Superintendent, who never missed Red Wing in his monthly rounds, they kept their oddly transformed home bright and cheerful, their hearts light and pure, and their faith clear, daily thanking G.o.d that they were permitted to do what they thought to be His will.

All of their experiences were not so pleasant. By their own s.e.x they were still regarded with that calm, un.o.bserving indifference with which the modern lady treats the sister who stands without the pale of reputable society. So far as the "ladies" of Horsford were concerned, the "n.i.g.g.e.r teachers" at Red Wing stood on the plane of the courtesan--they were _seen_ but not _known._ The recognition which they received from the gentlemen of Southern birth had in it not a little of the shame-faced curiosity which characterizes the intercourse of men with women whose reputations have been questioned but not entirely destroyed. They were treated with apparent respect, in the school-room, upon the highway, or at the market, by men who would not think of recognizing them when in the company of their mothers, sisters, or wives. Such treatment would have been too galling to be borne had it not been that the spotless-minded girls were all too pure to realize its significance.

CHAPTER XXI.

A CHILD-MAN.

Eliab Hill had from the first greatly interested the teachers at Red Wing. The necessities of the school and the desire of the charitable Board having it in charge, to accustom the colored people to see those of their own race trusted and advanced, had induced them to employ him as an a.s.sistant teacher, even before he was really competent for such service. It is true he was given charge of only the most rudimentary work, but that fact, while it inspired his ambition, showed him also the need of improvement and made him a most diligent student.

Lucy Ellison, as being the most expert in housewifely accomplishments, had naturally taken charge of the domestic arrangements at the Ordinary, and as a consequence had cast a larger share of the school duties upon her "superior officer," as she delighted to call Mollie Ainslie. This division of labor suited well the characteristics of both. To plan, direct, and manage the school came as naturally and easily to the stirring Yankee "school-marm" as did the ordering of their little household to the New York farmer's daughter. Among the extra duties thus devolved upon the former was the supervision and direction of the studies of Eliab Hill. As he could not consistently with the requisite discipline be included in any of the regular cla.s.ses that had been formed, and his affliction prevented him from coming to them in the evening for private instruction, she arranged to teach him at the school-house after school hours.

So that every day she remained after the school was dismissed to give him an hour's instruction. His careful attention and rapid progress amply repaid her for this sacrifice, and she looked forward with much pleasure to the time when, after her departure, he should be able to conduct the school with credit to himself and profit to his fellows.

Then, for the first time, she realized how great is the momentum which centuries of intelligence and freedom give to the mind of the learner--how unconscious is the acquisition of the great bulk of that knowledge which goes to make up the Caucasian manhood of the nineteenth century.

Eliab's desire to acquire was insatiable, his application was tireless, but what he achieved seemed always to lack a certain flavor of completeness. It was without that substratum of general intelligence which the free white student has partly inherited and partly acquired by observation and experience, without the labor or the consciousness of study. The whole world of life, business, society, was a sealed book to him, which no other hand might open for him; while the field of literature was but a bright tangled thicket before him.

That unconscious familiarity with the past which is as the small-change of daily thought to us was a strange currency to his mind. He had, indeed, the key to the value of each piece, and could, with difficulty, determine its power when used by another, but he did not give or receive the currency with instinctive readiness.

Two things had made him clearly the intellectual superior of his fellows--the advantages of his early years by which he learned to read, and the habit of meditation which the solitude of his stricken life induced. This had made him a thinker, a philosopher far more profound than his general attainments would naturally produce. With the super-sensitiveness which always characterizes the afflicted, also, he had become a most acute and subtle observer of the human countenance, and read its infinite variety of expression with ease and certainty. In two things he might be said to be profoundly versed--the spirit of the Scriptures, and the workings of the human heart. With regard to these his powers of expression were commensurate with his knowledge. The Psalms of David were more comprehensible to him than the simplest formulas of arithmetic.

Mollie Ainslie was not unfrequently amazed at this inequality of nature in her favorite pupil. On one side he seemed a full-grown man of grand proportions; on the other, a pigmy-child. She had heard him pour forth torrents of eloquence on the Sabbath, and felt the force of a nature exceptionally rich and strong in its conception of religious truths and human needs, only to find him on the morrow floundering hopelessly in the mire of rudimentary science, or getting, by repeated perusals, but an imperfect idea of some author's words, which it seemed to her he ought to have grasped at a glance.

He had always been a man of thought, and now for two years he had been studying after the manner of the schools, and his tasks were yet but rudimentary. It is true, he had read much and had learned not a little in a thousand directions which he did not appreciate, but yet he was discouraged and despondent, and it is no wonder that he was so. The mountain which stood in his pathway could not be climbed over nor pa.s.sed by, but pebble by pebble and grain by grain must be removed, until a broad, smooth highway showed instead. And all this he must do before he could comprehend the works of those writers whose pages glow with light to _our_ eyes from the very first. He read and re-read these, and groped his way to their meaning with doubt and difficulty.

Being a woman, Mollie Ainslie was not speculative. She could not solve this problem of strength and weakness. In power of thought, breadth of reasoning, and keenness of a.n.a.lysis she felt that he was her master; in knowledge--the power of acquiring and using scientific facts--she could but laugh at his weakness. It puzzled her. She wondered at it; but she had never sought to a.s.sign a reason for it. It remained for the learner himself to do this. One day, after weeks of despondency, he changed places with his teacher during the hour devoted to his lessons, and taught her why it was that he, Eliab Hill, with all his desire to learn and his ceaseless application to his tasks, yet made so little progress in the acquisition of knowledge.

"It ain't so much the words, Miss Mollie," he said, as he threw down a book in which he had asked her to explain some pa.s.sage she had never read before, but the meaning of which came to her at a glance--"it ain't so much the words as it is the ideas that trouble me. These men who write seem to think and feel differently from those I have known. I can learn the words, but when I have them all right I am by no means sure that I know just what they mean,"

"Why, you must," said the positive little Yankee woman; "when one has the words and knows the meaning of all of them, he cannot help knowing what the writer means."

"Perhaps I do not put it as I should," said he sadly. "What I want to say is, that there are thoughts and bearings that I can never gather from books alone. They come to you, Miss Ainslie, and to those like you, from those who were before you in the world, and from things about you. It is the part of knowledge that can't be put into books. Now I have none of that. My people cannot give it to me. I catch a sight of it here and there. Now and then, a conversation I heard years ago between some white men will come up and make plain something that I am puzzling over, but it is not easy for me to learn."

"I do not think I understand you," she replied; "but if I do, I am sure you are mistaken. How can you know the meanings of words, and yet not apprehend the thought conveyed?"

"I do not know _how_," he replied. "I only know that while thought seems to come from the printed page to your mind like a flash of light, to mine it only comes with difficulty and after many readings, though I may know every word. For instance," he continued, taking up a voiume of Tennyson which lay upon her table, "take any pa.s.sage. Here is one: 'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean!' I have no doubt that brings a distinct idea to your mind."

"Yes," she replied, hesitatingly; "I never thought of it before, but I think it does."

"Well, it does not to mine. I cannot make out what is meant by 'idle' tears, nor whether the author means to say that he does not know what 'tears' mean, or only 'idle' tears, or whether he does not understand such a display of grief because it _is_ idle."

"Might he not have meant any or all of these?" she asked.

"That is it," he replied. "I want to know what he _did_ mean.

Of course, if I knew all about his life and ways, and the like, I could tell pretty fully his meaning. You know them because his thoughts are your thoughts, his life has been your life. You belong to the same race and cla.s.s. I am cut off from this, and can only stumble slowly along the path of knowledge."